By Binta Jaiteh
Parliamentarians have unanimously approved a tune of D15 million as a bailout funds to media houses in the country. The bailout fund is meant to help the media amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The supplementary appropriation bill is an emergency fund that seeks to help combat covid-19 and other emergency issue in the country.
Speaking during the debate, MP for Serrekunda West, Madi Ceesay said: “if you look at all our budget line subvention submission bill there is nothing for the media. I am suggesting at least D50million for all the media houses.”
“Even our sub-region Senegal and Guinea Bissau have given huge amount of money to their media houses, empowered them to do their job because we need awareness and is only the media that can play that key role,” he said.
According to him, if they want their message to go beyond this house and also to contain covid-19 this is what they should do for media houses. He added on that many have participated in radio programs to sensitize the public “so why can we empower the media.”
In his respond, Mambureh Njie, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs said:“I think the request for media houses is important as they are doing a fantastic job. They are not charity organization but we will see if there is anything that we can do just to include an amount for media houses.”
He added: “I will recommend for media to be given a package and this will be allocated directly to the Ministry of Information to do the sharing.”